Summary

Constancia sits at the funeral mass of Gonzalo Cruz with Gonzalo's four other wives. She had sent Silvestre a telegram to let him know his father had died, but Silvestre did not respond. Gonzalo died the day after his long-planned invasion of Cuba was launched. The invasion resulted in Herberto's death. Constancia learned that forty-four men in guerrilla fatigues died storming the Hotel Bellamar on Varadero Beach in Cuba. Seventeen guerillas were captured. Herberto was among the twenty-nine missing, presumably hiding, or dead.

Several days after the funeral of Gonzalo, a man with a thick Camagüey accent appears at Constancia's door. His name is Evaristo Leal and he claims to have worked on the Mestres' pig ranch. He knew Constancia's Tio Dámaso. He gives her a letter that Dámaso had written her in 1984. Dámaso had given him the letter after the man...